Eastern Australia Airlines
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Founded | 1949 | ||||||
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Hubs | Sydney Airport, Melbourne Airport | ||||||
Frequent-flyer program | Qantas Frequent Flyer | ||||||
Airport lounge | Qantas Club | ||||||
Alliance | Oneworld | ||||||
Fleet size | 19[1] | ||||||
Destinations | 26 | ||||||
Company slogan | Spirit of Australia | ||||||
Parent company | Qantas Airways Pty Ltd | ||||||
Headquarters | Mascot, Australia |
Eastern Australia Airlines Pty Ltd is an airline based on the grounds of Sydney Airport in Mascot, City of Botany Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.[2] It is a regional domestic airline serving 16 destinations under the QantasLink banner, and from December 2015, under the Jetstar banner in New Zealand. Its main base is Sydney Airport, with a hub at Melbourne Airport.[3]
History
The airline was established and started operations in 1949. It began in Tamworth as a one-aircraft, one-pilot operation, known as Tamworth Air Taxi Service (soon after to be shortened to Tamair), serving farming communities in New South Wales and Queensland. After 36 years of expansion and amalgamation with several smaller commuter operators, the current name was adopted in 1987. Australian Airlines purchased 26% of Eastern Australian Airlines from East-West Airlines in 1988, and the airline became a wholly owned subsidiary in 1991. Qantas purchased Australian Airlines in 1992.
In 2002, Qantas merged its Mildura-based subsidiary Southern Australia Airlines with Eastern, the resulting operation using the Eastern name.
In August 2008 it was announced that Eastern Australia would shortly commence operating 72-seat Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 aircraft on services to regional centres in New South Wales, supplementing services with smaller 50-seat Dash 8s and allowing the removal of 36-seat Dash 8s from service on some routes altogether with the retirement of all 100 series Dash 8s.[4]
In June 2015, Qantas Group chief executive Alan Joyce announced that Eastern Australia would operate regional services in New Zealand, using Jetstar-branded Bombardier Dash 8 turboprops.[5]
Destinations

Eastern Australia Airlines operates services to the following domestic scheduled destinations. In December 2015 Eastern Australian Airlines began regional domestic services within New Zealand under the Jetstar brand.[6]
- From Sydney
- Albury, New South Wales
- Armidale, New South Wales
- Toowoomba (Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport)
- Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
- Coffs Harbour, New South Wales
- Dubbo, New South Wales
- Lord Howe Island
- Moree, New South Wales
- Port Macquarie, New South Wales
- Tamworth, New South Wales
- Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
- From Melbourne
- From Adelaide
- From Port Macquarie
- From Auckland
- Napier
- Nelson
- New Plymouth (begins 1 February 2016)
- Palmerston North (begins 1 February 2016)
- From Wellington
- Nelson (begins 1 February 2016)
Fleet

As of March 2015 the Eastern Australia Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft:[1]
Aircraft | Total | Orders | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
de Havilland Canada DHC-8-200 | 3 | 0 | — |
Bombardier DHC-8 Q300 | 16 | 0 | SBI, TQD, TQK, TQL and TQM operated in New Zealand by Jetstar Airways and 2 other to Air Nelson by February 2016[citation needed]. |
References
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External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eastern Australia Airlines. |
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Australian civil aircraft register search, using "Eastern Australia" as the search parameter. Search conducted 13 October 2012
- ↑ "World Airline Directory." Flight International. 23–29 March 2004. 66.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ "QantasLink Announces New Q400 Schedule for NSW"; Qantas Media Release. Retrieved 6 September 2008.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Qantas online schedule. Accessed 16 December 2009.
- Pages with reference errors
- Use dmy dates from January 2013
- Use Australian English from January 2013
- All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English
- Articles with unsourced statements from December 2015
- Commons category link is defined as the pagename
- Qantas
- Airlines of Australia
- Oneworld affiliate members
- Airlines established in 1987